When it comes to the business of winning NBA games, first-year Nuggets coach Michael Malone has had to remind himself that, yes, it’s permissible to be patient.
This situation calls for it. In bunches.
“You’re going to go through growing pains when you have such young players, and that’s the challenge,” Malone said. “This is being patient, being positive, and I get caught in the moment at times. I think the players do feel that we are laying down a foundation, we are headed in right direction. And when you have so much youth, there’s going to be growing pains.”
The peaks (wins in four of five games early on) and valleys (the eight-game losing streak that followed) are indicative of just that. The first quarter of the Nuggets’ season has probably grayed Malone’s beard quicker, but the coach and the front office are committed to the process.
“We just have to continue to support, to learn and to go from there,” Malone said. “This year, there’s going to be some failure, but we’re going to use it as a gift, as a learning opportunity, and we’re going to grow from it. It’s a long season. Let’s just keep on building, keep on growing, keep on staying together — not be dysfunctional like some team — be competitive and good things are going to happen for us. It’s going to be a matter when, not if.”
Somewhat surprisingly, the Nuggets are one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league (averaging 97.2 points) and, until the last two games, have struggled to consistently make shots. An eight-game losing streak undermined Denver’s 6-5 start, a start that even left mainstay Kenneth Faried pleasantly surprised. “We’re doing better than I thought we would,” Faried said then.
The truth probably lies in the fact that the Nuggets are closer to being the team that hovers around .500 than the one that fell seven games under it. No one in the organization was preaching playoffs this season, but they did insist upon competitiveness and steady improvement.
The c, with an average age of 26.27, according to the NBA. Yet that isn’t far off the league average of 26.88 per team.
The average years of experience on the team is 4.93, which also is about average. But the Nuggets get to that average with age extremes. Basically half the team are infants and the other half are “well-seasoned” veterans.
The Nuggets skew young in the starting five, which has had a 19-year-old (Emmanuel Mudiay), 20-year-old (Nikola Jokic) and 21-year-old (Gary Harris). When Jusuf Nurkic gets back into the swing of things, that’ll add another 21-year old to the starting unit.
Only Philadelphia’s Jalil Okafor (32.8) plays more minutes per game as a rookie than Mudiay (30.2), who has had flashes of greatness mixed with high-turnover and poor-shooting games. Mudiay averages 11.3 points and leads all rookies in assists (6.04), but he is shooting just 31 percent from the field (25.7 from 3-point range) and has 84 turnovers. Jokic gave a glimpse of what could be with a 23-point, 12-rebound, three-block outburst against the Spurs on Nov. 18.
“Experience is the best teacher for anybody,” Malone said. “So the fact that these guys are going through it, the good and the bad and the ugly, by going through these tough times, it’s only going to accelerate the growth of our roster. It’s only going to accelerate their growth as NBA players, and hopefully by the end of the year, and going into Year 2, we’ll be much better off for it.”
The day Malone was introduced to the media as the Nuggets’ newest head coach, conversation from him, team president Josh Kroenke and general manager Tim Connelly turned to comparisons with the 2009 Nuggets, which advanced to Western Conference Finals.
Specifically, the defensive-efficiency ranking that the team had that year. It ranked eighth, and the first thing they wanted to do was get that number back to that.
Going into Sunday, the Nuggets ranked 25th in defensive efficiency. Getting consistently focused play has been an issue: The Nuggets allow a bloated 104.8 points per 100 possessions. Two of the glaring areas holding them back are defending the ball at the point of attack and getting out to 3-point shooters. The two combine to hurt the Nuggets when opposing ball handlers are able to get into the paint, collapse the defense, then kick out to wide-open shooters. Only Washington and New Orleans allow opponents to shoot better from the 3-point line than the Nuggets (38.7 percent).
So there is work to be done.
Of their 21 games, 15 of them were played against teams over .500. The Nuggets were 4-11 in those contests. They were saddled with a very difficult start, seeing Golden State twice, San Antonio twice, and the Clippers, Thunder and Mavericks all once. As expected with a youthful team and a new coaching staff, the Nuggets didn’t win any of those. It’s part of the reason Denver was very much looking forward to getting into a December schedule that balances the degree of difficulty back out.
“This is like the beginning,” guard Randy Foye said. “It’s a new month, and (November) is behind us. We had one of the hardest schedules — and not to use that as an excuse. But just to put that behind us and just build on this, I think is huge.”
